About Us

In 1977 we hired our first narrowboat from Anglo Welsh at Market Harborough.From that moment our destiny was set. In 2006 we finally purchased our own brand new 57' narrowboat which we named 'Free Spirit'. Our aim is to travel the length and breadth of all the navigable rivers and canals of the UK. This will be our story as it unfolds.

Wednesday, 17 September 2014

One stuck doggie

With another fine day ahead we polished the side of FS, a job we had not been looking
forward to, having spent hours on getting the marks out from the other side. Thankfully there were only a
couple of scratch marks to remove with T-Cut so it meant we only had to
apply the polish. As we're not planning to move from this mooring until after the weekend (noise not to bad from the pub) it meant we could explore the surrounding area. Seen on the bridge was a board showing the site a Medieval village.

. After a bite of lunch and putting a collar and lead on Jade, (she never normally wears a collar so appeared a bit reluctant to get off the boat) we headed off for the village of Woughton. Now I'm
not sure what I expected to see but it certainly wasn't just a grazing field full of mounds and a dip in the ground which suggested a moat. Had hoped for a some sort of hut footings to show what had been there so was a tad dissapointed. But we did find the River Ouzel, a lovely meandering river through some beautiful countryside. Here Jade suddenly perked up after dragging her heels and made a bee line for the water. She was that focused on going for a dip that our shouts of NO made not a scrap of difference. As the photo shows, she chose the muddiest part of the bank to go in.

She was having a grand time swimming around, great for her arthritic joints but not so good for us to get to her. And sure enough the trouble started when she wanted to get out.

Can someone help me please?

Took several attempts and a lot of heaving to get her free of the mud and up the bank.

None the worse for her ordeal we headed back to FS and came across a quaint pub Ye Olde Swan. So giving Jade as our excuse 'cause she needed a rest ' (yea right!) it would have been rude not to call in for a pint. Three cask ales were on, London Pride, Doombar and the one Ian chose Hobgoblin. I'm a lager lout myself so had half a Carling. Ian also found out that from September 26th to mid October a beer festival was being held on the premises. We may just have to stay on this mooring a bit longer so Ian can sample the beers at the start of the featival!

Back at FS and giving Jade a rub down. Look at the lovely shine on the cabin side.(: